Description

The work of Richard Wagner is a continuing source of artistic inspiration and ideological controversy in literature, philosophy, and music, as well as cinema. In Wagner and Cinema, a diverse group of established and emerging scholars examines Wagner's influence on cinema from the silent era to the present. The essays in this collection engage in a critical dialogue with existing studies—extending and renovating current theories related to the topic—and propose unexplored topics and new methodological perspectives. The contributors discuss films ranging from the 1913 biopic of Wagner to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, with essays on silent cinema, film scoring, Wagner in Hollywood, German cinema, and Wagner beyond the soundtrack.

Author Bio

Jeongwon Joe is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Cincinnati. She is editor of Between Opera and Cinema (with Rose Theresa) and has published articles on Milos Forman’s Amadeus, Philip Glass’s La Belle et la Bête, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Gérard Corbiau’s Farinelli, and other works related to opera and film music.

Sander L. Gilman is Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emory University. He is author of Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity; Multiculturalism and the Jews; Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery; Freud, Race, and Gender; and Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews.

Reviews

“The work of Richard Wagner is a continuing source of artistic inspiration and ideological controversy in literature, philosophy, music, and cinema. Here, the contributors discuss films ranging from the 1913 biopic of Wagner to Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, with essays on silent cinema, film scoring, Wagner in Hollywood, German cinema, and Wagner beyond the soundtrack.”

“Timely, relevant, and absolutely central to what is going on in so many fields. The editors have done a terrific job in bringing together not only the most appropriate but also the most stimulating and exciting of contributors.”
— Linda Hutcheon, author of A Theory of Adaptation

“[D]emands and deserves a commitment of time and space from a wide range of readers as they experience its transitions . . . and powerful enlightening moments. Vol. 64 2 Summer 2011”
— Jrnl American Musicological Soc JAMS

“[Wagner and Cinema] looks at the plethora of senses in which Wagner's music and different kinds of Wagnerian reception histories have informed cinematic production throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. ...Wagner and Cinema is a text that will no doubt be consulted for many years henceforward.Issue 24, 2012”
— Nathan Waddell, Scope

“[T]he book . . . present[s] the reader with a strong and very varied attempt to discuss the relation between Wagner, opera and cinema and includes a vast array of densely detailed information covering large historical periods in many of its well-written essays.Issue 29”
— Screening the Past

“A useful resource for serious students of film, theater, and/or music, the book includes numerous photos, and helpful music notation enhances the text. . . . Recommended.”
— Choice

“Wagner & Cinema provides a comprehensive discussion of its subject . . . [I]t offers an excellent introduction for scholars interested in Wagner's influence on film and offers a starting point for future studies. 34/2 (2011)”
— German Studies Review

“The essays in this collection engage in a critical dialogue with existing studies—extending and renovating current theories related to the topic—and propose unexplored topics and new methodological perspectives.March 01, 2010”
— Camero-Stylo

Customer Reviews

Table of Contents

Foreword by Tony Palmer

Introduction: Why Wagner and Cinema? Tolkien Was Wrong \ Jeongwon Joe

Part 1. Wagner and the Silent Film 1. Wagnerian Motives: Narrative Integration and the Development of Silent Film Accompaniment, 1908<N>1913 \ James Buhler 2. Underscoring Drama--Picturing Music \ Peter Franklin 3. The Life and Works of Richard Wagner (1913): Becce, Froelich, and Messter \ Paul Fryer 4. Listening for Wagner in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen \ Adeline Mueller

Part 2. Wagnerian Resonance in Film Scoring 5. The Resonances of Wagnerian Opera and Nineteenth-Century Melodrama in the Film Scores of Max Steiner \ David Neumeyer 6. Wagner's Influence on Gender Roles in Early Hollywood Film \ Eva Rieger 7. The Penumbra of Wagner's Ombra in Two Science Fiction Films from 1951: The Thing from Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still \ William H. Rosar

Part 4. Wagner in German Cinema 12. Wagner as Leitmotif: The New German Cinema and Beyond \ Roger Hillman 13. The Power of Emotion: Wagner and Film \ Jeremy Tambling 14. Wagner in East Germany: Joachim Herz's Der fliegende Holländer (1964) \ Joy H. Calico